The Angelic Doctor Against the Errors of the Greeks - Chapter 10

How the Holy Spirit is to be understood as the image of the Son.

So, too, in many passages of these authorities the Holy Spirit is said to be the image of the Son, as Athanasius says in his third discourse on the Council of Nicaea: “The Holy Spirit is said to be and is the one deifying and vivifying truth of Father and Son, the image of the Son, throughout all holding him fast by essence in himself, by nature representing him, just as the Son is the image of the Father.”  And in his letter to Serapion: “The Holy Spirit naturally contains the Son within himself as his true and natural image.”  And Basil: “The Holy Spirit is called the finger, breath, unction, breeze, mind of Christ, prccession, production, mission, emanation, effusion, warmth, splendor, image, mark, true God.”  And elsewhere: “The Holy Spirit exists as true power emanating from Father and Son and as the natural image of Father and Son, naturally representing both to us.” 

Among the Latins,  however, the Holy Spirit is not ordinarily called the image of Father or Son. For Augustine in the sixth chapter on the Trinity says that “only the Son is called the Word”, and that “only the Son is the image of the Father as only he is Son.”  Richard of St. Victor in his book on the Trinity  also gives a reason why the Holy Spirit, though like the Father in nature as is the Son, is not one with him in any relative property as is the Son with the Father in actively spirating the Holy Spirit.

Some,  however, assign as reason why the Holy Spirit cannot be called an image the fact that this would make him the image of two persons, namely of the Father and of the Son, since he proceeds from both. But to be the one image of two persons is impossible. And on the authority of Holy Scripture as well, which it is forbidden to contradict in treating of God, the Son is explicitly called the image of the Father. For the Epistle to the Colossians (1:13) says: “He has transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins: he is the image of the invisible God”, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews (1:3) it is stated of the Son: “He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature.”

It should be kept in mind, however, that the saintly Greeks  offer two texts of Holy Scripture in proof that the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son. For in the Epistle to the Romans (8:29) asserts: “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.”; and the image of the Son seems to be none other than the Holy Spirit. Second, the First Epistle to the Corinthians (15: 49) says: “Even as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the likeness of the heavenly”, that is, of Christ

By this image they understand the Holy Spirit, though in these passages the Holy Spirit is not expressly called an image. It might also be interpreted to mean that men are conformed to the image of the Son, or that they bear the image of Christ, inasmuch as these holy men are by gifts of grace perfected so as to be similar to Christ, as the Apostle says in 2 Cor. 3:18: “But we all, with faces unveiled, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into his very image from glory to glory, as through the Spirit of the Lord.” For he does not state here that the image is the Spirit of Christ, but something from the Spirit of Christ existing in us.

But because it would be presumptuous to contradict the explicit texts of such great Doctors. We may say that the Holy Spirit is the image of the Father and of the Son provided image is understood to mean derived from another and bearing his likeness. If, however, image is understood to mean something deriving its being from another and by reason of that origination bearing the likeness of that from which it has being inasmuch as it is from that other, as a begotten Son or a conceived Word, then the term applies only to the Son. For it is distinctive of a son to possess the same nature as his father, whatever the nature involved. Likewise it is distinctive of a word to resemble that which is expressed by the word, whatsoever be the word. But it is not proper to the nature of a spirit or of love that it be the likeness in all things of him to whom it belongs. Such likeness, however, is in fact verified in the Spirit of God because of that unity and simplicity of the divine essence, whence whatever is in God must be God.

Nor is the fact that the Holy Spirit does not share with the Father some personal property a reason for refusing to speak of him as an image. For the likeness and equality of the divine persons does not rest on what is proper to each, but on essential attributes. Nor should inequality or unlikeness be attributed to God on the basis of different personal properties, as Augustine says in his book against Maximus. For when the Son is said to be begotten of the Father, “inequality of substance is not indicated, but order of nature.”  In like manner, also, no difficulty arises from the fact that the Holy Spirit is from two persons; for he is from two in so far as they are one, since Father and Son are the one principle of the Holy Spirit.